Abdul,
Thanks for your succinct and valuable contribution to this topic. My
response will not be nearly as in depth as yours, as I haven't a lot of
time this morning, but I did want to address just two quick things.
First, I disagree on the click wheel. I own and adore my iPod, and have
no problems with the click wheel at all. I do not understand,
whatsoever, why people think it is so much less accessible than anything
else. It would be nice if the menu options were voiced, but aside from
that, it is extremely usable. Telephone keypads, TV remote controls,
microwave ovens, and any number of gadgets have controls which must be
memorized by the blind, and tend to be far more difficult to manage than
Apple's click wheel, which I happen to like and have found far easier
than most of the above items.
Why a blindee would want the new iPhone is a fairly simple answer. For
many of the same reasons a sighted person would, plus the potential for
running VoiceOver. I'm not turned off by gadgets that might take time to
learn to use. SO many visually impaired folks don't want to be bothered
to learn to use something, which is the case with iPods. They're missing
out in a lot of cases. They hear, "Oh, the click wheel is horribly
inaccessible," and they take that as gospel. I'm sure glad i didn't.
So many in the VI community are always so ready to assume something
isn't accessible. If it doesn't talk, it's not worth their time. If more
would go in with an open mind, you'd find there are a lot of things you
can get a lot of use or enjoyment out of. If you want to complain about
inaccessibility, complain about iTunes on the Mac, which I think very
much qualifies. While there are some workarounds, there are many things
that simply are impossible with it. Under Windows, iTunes and
Window-Eyes are tricky, but totally useable and I can basically do
anything a sighted person can, short of managing photos. I haven't
looked in great detail at the iTunes store, but with a little patience
that probably could be done as well.
Abdul Kamara wrote:
Greetings All,
Just a few clarifications regarding the iPhone.
It makes sense that Apple chose Cingular. The GSM market share in the U.S
has exceeded 50%, and Cingular is the largest GSM provider in America. In
2004 Deutche Telecom (parent of T-mobile, another GSM carrier) reported
having a subscriber base of 99 million, making it only the sixth largest
mobile phone carrier in the world, this is to say nothing of Vodaphone and
other formidable GSM providers. Relative to Nokia or even Motarola, Apple
is a small firm, that needs to carefully target it's resources for areas of
greater opportunity. In the mobile phone market, CDMA is not it. Bottom
line, the world has gone GSM and so should the U.S. By the way, T-mobile
users, don't dispare. As Cingular and T-mobile often share the same towers
(ergo the same technology), it's likely that the iPhone can be made to
function with your service.
The benefits of Apple's choice, are not only economical, but also personal.
I've recently moved to the UK and I'm quite pleased that I did not have to
replace my Quad-band GSM phone from Samsung. All I had to do was pop in a
pay-as-you-go SIM and just like that... Were I to own an iPhone the same
would hold true, and given how expensive mobile phones can be, it's a good
thing that I don't have to own a phone for the U.S and another for when I
travel.
So, to those complaining that iPhone is not appealing to the majority of the
U.S market, I say that first, it's not the majority. And second, rather
than complaining about Apple, complain about your carrier's unwillingness to
adhere to a defacto world standard. Or, if having an iPhone is simply not
important to you, don't complain at all.
Better still, if we are going to complain, it should perhaps be over THE
issue.
Some of you have been asking whether mobile speak can be made to function on
the phone. It's been said while also aknowledging that iPhone will be
running Mac OSX, and not Simbean or other derivatives therein. Wouldn't a
safer bet be that the phone might run VO and/or Zoom? Rather, wouldn't it
be nicer if it actually was a safe bet?
In any event I'm curious as to why any blind person would want to have this
phone. Notwithstanding any possible accessible software running on it, it is
a touch screen device. The physical interface is by all accounts, not blind
friendly. Yet while the click wheel on the previous generation iPods are
bad enough, they are still manageable.
Abdul
